Izmir wears its past in layers: a Bronze Age mound at Bayraklı, a Roman theatre dug out from under demolished houses, nine Sephardic synagogues off one lane, and a whole quarter rebuilt after the fire of 1922. Three days, from Athena's temple to Atatürk's desk.
The first Smyrna, settled around 3000 BC and rebuilt on a grid plan after 650 BC. The excavated Temple of Athena, paved street lines and Aeolic capitals sit in a hollow beside the ring road, with Turkish and English panels.
Three floors holding what came out of the Agora, Bayraklı and Klazomenai: the colossal Poseidon and Demeter figures from the basilica, a bronze Roman runner, Aeolic capitals and Bronze Age burial jars. Open 08:30–19:00 in summer.
The fortress crowning Mount Pagos, where Lysimachus refounded Smyrna after 300 BC. The standing walls are Byzantine and Ottoman on Hellenistic footings; Roman cisterns survive inside the enclosure and the whole bay opens below.
Excavated since 2012 beneath expropriated Ottoman houses on the north slope of Pagos. The Roman cavea seated roughly 16,000, and tradition places the martyrdom of Polycarp here in AD 155. Digging is ongoing behind fencing.
An 1875 Levantine mansion on the waterfront, given to Atatürk in 1926 and kept as he left it: desk, uniforms, telegrams. The ground floor documents the Greek–Turkish war and the Turkish entry into Izmir on 9 September 1922.
Pietro Canonica's bronze equestrian Atatürk, unveiled in 1932, points inland toward Afyon and the final offensive of 1922. Reliefs on the pedestal show the Sakarya crossing and civilians; the square was carved out during the post-fire replan.
The 1932 fire-brigade building now holds Izmir's civic archive: photographs of the Levantine quay, the burnt zone of 1922, tram tickets, Ottoman street maps, and reconstructed shopfronts including a pharmacy and a coffeehouse.
Raymond Père's 1901 tower marks the 25th year of Abdülhamid II's reign, in an Ottoman-Moorish style with four fountains at its base; the clock mechanism came as a gift from Kaiser Wilhelm II. It outlived both the 1922 fire and the 1928 earthquake.
Nine Sephardic synagogues stand within a few hundred metres of the fish-and-spice lane called Havra Street — Signora Giveret of the 1660s, Algazi, Bikur Holim and Şalom among them. It is the densest surviving Ottoman-Jewish quarter in Turkey.
Built in 1907 with Sultan Abdülhamid's permission, Beth Israel is Izmir's largest working synagogue, its rose window and twin stairs looking down Mithatpaşa Caddesi through the hillside streets where the community moved out of the bazaar.
Ege University's rectorate occupies the Belhomme mansion of the 1880s; the Paterson, Whittall and Giraud houses stand within a short walk, along with the Anglican St Mary Magdalene of 1857, built for the British families trading figs and cotton.
Izmir's oldest church still in use, permitted by Süleyman the Magnificent and rebuilt in 1625. Raymond Père — the clock tower's architect — painted the 1898 frescoes narrating the life of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, burned in the city in AD 155.